Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Spinning the Fighting in South Waziristan

THE PAKISTANI GOVERNMENT has entered into two agreements in the past seven months that promise to destabilize Afghanistan and provide a haven for terrorists to plan and train for catastrophic attacks.Under the September 2006 Waziristan Accord, Pakistan agreed that its military would no longer operate in the tribal agencies of North and South Waziristan; since this left the Taliban and al Qaeda free to recruit, train, arm, and send fighters into Afghanistan, the security situation in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan unsurprisingly deteriorated. On March 17, Pakistan entered a disturbingly similar agreement--handing the Bajaur agency over to Taliban-aligned tribes. But recent events show that Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf's government is intent on spinning both accords as successes.

There are somewhere between a few hundred to around a thousand militants from Central Asian republics in South Waziristan. On March 6, some of them were involved in a skirmish that saw a pro-government tribal leader clash with a group of Uzbeks and their Taliban supporters in a South Waziristan bazaar. The fighting left seventeen Uzbeks and a tribesman dead. Two weeks later, a local Taliban commander named Mullah Nazir entered the fray after accusations that the Uzbeks had killed a mid-level al Qaeda commander in his care named Saiful Asad. Why the Uzbeks killed Asad is unknown, but observers suggest there may have been a criminal dimension at play since Asad was known as a moneyman.

Shortly after Mullah Nazir became involved in the fighting, Pakistani interior minister Aftab Sherpao told the media that the bloodshed was "the result of the agreements the government made with tribal people in which they pledged to expel foreigners and now they are doing it." The Pakistani newspaper the Nation echoed Sherpao's spin, noting that "Islamabad says the offensive by about 1,000 conservative local tribesmen will cut cross-border attacks in Afghanistan, and shows the success of a peace deal in the South Waziristan Agency that was criticised by the West." Western journalists likewise repeated the line that the fighting stemmed from the tribes' desire to eject foreign militants from Pakistani soil.

Islamabad's spin is implausible and, in fact, dangerous. This is an internal conflict fueled by tribal rivalries, the Uzbeks' murder of al Qaeda agents, a disagreement in strategic priorities, and land. It was the combination of these factors that gave Mullah Nazir the impetus to fight.

The first of these factors, an inter-Taliban power struggle, centers on the rivalry between Mullah Nazir and a Taliban commander known as Mullah Omar (but not the Mullah Omar). The two have been at odds since Mullah Nazir replaced Mullah Omar as head of the Ahmadzai tribe--both because of Mullah Nazir's usurpation and also preexisting clan rivalries.

The rivalry between the two men was inflamed when the Uzbeks, with whom Mullah Omar had aligned himself, killed Arab al Qaeda operative Saiful Asad. The Uzbeks also reportedly killed Sheikh Asadullah, a Saudi who was described as "the moneybags in the entire tribal belt," although it isn't known when this killing took place. Mullah Nazir was incensed by these killings, as both men were under his care when their lives were taken.

A third factor is that the Uzbeks had different strategic priorities than the local Taliban and their tribal allies. While the tribes are eager to engage U.S. forces in Afghanistan, the Uzbeks prefer to fight the "near enemy" rather than the "far enemy": they want to engage the Pakistani government. This worried the Taliban, backed by Mullah Nazir, because attacks on the government could draw unwanted attention. They figured that Pakistan's government might only turn a blind eye to jihadist violence if that violence focused outward on Afghanistan, Kashmir, or India--not on Pakistan itself.

Fourth, the fighting may be a land grab. The tribal areas are essentially set up as a feudal society, with land serving as a key component of local power. Journalist Mobarak Ali told the Pakistani press, "I have heard of the Uzbeks and Tajiks holding large properties of which some were bought, some gifted by the local people who entered into relations with them, while some were taken forcibly." Ali said that one bone of contention between the Uzbeks and locals may be these properties, which some Uzbeks developed into model farms.

These four factors best explain the recent skirmishes in South Waziristan. The only party to argue that a general desire to push foreign fighters out of Waziristan was a factor is the Musharraf regime.

That argument does not withstand scrutiny. Although Mullah Nazir's tribesmen declared a jihad against some Uzbeks and their local supporters in South Waziristan, Arab al Qaeda were not included in this jihad--and the tribesmen didn'teven target all Uzbeks in the area. Pakistan's News International notes that the tribesmen are only fighting what they describe as the "bad Uzbeks," rather than the "good Uzbeks."

The bad Uzbeks are part of the Islamic Jihad Group, a faction that splintered from the terrorist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) in 2004. Islamic Jihad Group militants in Waziristan are intent on fighting the "near enemy," including Pakistan's government, rather than U.S. and Coalition forces.

And the good Uzbeks? Rather than being part of the Islamic Jihad Group, they are affiliated with the main IMU, led by Tahir Yuldashev. This faction has closely aligned itself with al Qaeda and the Taliban. Yuldashev is believed to sit on al Qaeda's global shura council and maintains tactical control of about 500 fighters in Pakistan. Intelligence sources believe that some of these fighters serve on the Black Guard, bin Laden's personal corps of bodyguards. Yuldashev enjoys a close relationship with bin Laden, and his strategic preferences align with Mullah Nazir's: he also supports attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan. The fact that these are the "good Uzbeks" undermines Pakistan's claims about the recent fighting.

Moreover, Mullah Nazir's relationships with various al Qaeda operatives shows that he's not trying to drive Arab al Qaeda fighters from Waziristan. He has been a known ally of operatives Asad, Asadullah, and Khadr Al Kanadi, who had worked with al Qaeda for more than a decade and was reportedly one of Osama bin Laden's closer associates.

When the Pakistani government intervenes militarily to aid Mullah Nazir, it isn't helping the tribes push Islamic militants out of the country. Instead, the intervention is the equivalent of the U.S. government fighting the Tattaglias on the Corleones' behalf.

But, one might ask, isn't it good that the Taliban tribes and al Qaeda-aligned Uzbeks are fighting each other? Shouldn't we celebrate this schism? The answer is that the fighting is a positive turn for us, but the long-term impact may be relatively insignificant to al Qaeda. Like an internal mafia war, one family rises to the top in the end and the criminal enterprise continues.

But there is a real danger for the West. If the fighting is incorrectly viewed as a Waziristan Accord success story, it may lead some observers to believe that future Waziristan Accords are sustainable--and thus alleviate Western pressure to avoid such deals.